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Biggest insulting slap-in-the-face episode for fans?

Angel4576 said:
^^ Surely not as bad as the complete emasculation of the Borg, culminating in Endgame.
Not true, every time we saw Voyager encounter the Borg, they learned something new about them each time. The Voyager crew got to know about the Borg so much by the time the show ended, Harry had learned to read Borg language(a first for anybody outside the collective) & the Delta Flyer was the first Federation ship to combine Starfleet & Borg technology.

They also had Icheb, a child born with the ability to create a virus to kill Borg, as well as in "Dark Frontier" where Voyager aquired Borg tactical & assilimation information.

With all that knowledge, why wouldn't Voyager beat the Borg?
 
siskokid888 said:
^Did "Star Wars" ever take a swipe at the fans, hard core or otherwise, on screen? Did Japanese Anime? As I pointed out, I'm as far removed from the "fringe" hard core fan as you can be, but if that's your gig, hey, its a free country. My point is that non-fans see ALL fans of Trek as the basement living dress up canon crazy type, and "Hollow Pursuits" plays into this stereotype, from the very people benefiting most from it. It doesn't affect me directly, or maybe even matter all that much, but I still think its bullshit. What if, during a football game, the home team put a message on the board that said "all you drunk assholes that paint your face and picnic in the parking lot and cheer incessently are real pains in the ass". How do you think that would go over?

I don't think Lucas did personally, but they've been fodder for late-nite TV since the prequels started.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3EYintUu-o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U85cAKt7x48
 
When Lucas appeared on Colbert, he pretended to be the uber-fan. He actually offered the fans a bit of a sloppy kiss in the form of a mea culpa. Colbert pretended to misunderstand Lucas's status as Star Wars creator and said "You own all the films?" as if he were talking about DVDs. Lucas said something along the lines of "Not so much the first one." In other words, he disowned The Phantom Menace.

He and Colbert later had a light saber duel.
 
Angel4576 said:
exodus said:
With all that knowledge, why wouldn't Voyager beat the Borg?

What? The Borg suddenly 'forgot' to adapt?
Not instantaneously. We've seen they only adapt to phaser fire on a rotating frequency after three hits.

The Borg have to understand what they're adapting to before they can adapt to it. Even nature takes time to adapt to changing surroundings.

Besides, Voyager is more advanced the the Enterprise by 12 years. After WOLF 359, do you think Starfleet would still be making ships that couldn't withstand a Borg attack? That would be negligent. Starfleet ships are being made smaller in design to be faster and more structurally sound in a battle.

The Borg didn't get weaker, Starfleet upgraded to withstand them and hold them off a little longer.

War advances technology. Wars on Earth allowed manufactures of tanks to use what they learned to build Volvo's & VW's. Due to Borg attack, it caused Starfleet to build a ship like the Defiant. Because of the Borg and growing threat of the Maquis, Starfleet designed a ship like Voyager.
 
The emasculation of the Borg for me happened during Voyager's horrid "Unimatrix Zero", in which the crew allows themselves to be assimilated intentionally! With, of course, not a single negative repercussion ever shown at any time later. And THIS is what everyone has been so deathly afraid of for the past decade? I don't see how the Borg could be taken seriously as a threat after that.
 
Goji said:
The emasculation of the Borg for me happened during Voyager's horrid "Unimatrix Zero", in which the crew allows themselves to be assimilated intentionally! With, of course, not a single negative repercussion ever shown at any time later. And THIS is what everyone has been so deathly afraid of for the past decade? I don't see how the Borg could be taken seriously as a threat after that.
Thanks to Dr. Crusher & Data de-assimilating Picard, the EMH studing the Borg body from "Blood Fever" and aquiring information on how the Borg assimilate in "Dark Frontier", why would anybody need to be afraid of assimilation anymore? How many ex-Drones did Voyager come across since "Unity"?
 
exodus said:
Not instantaneously. We've seen they only adapt to phaser fire on a rotating frequency after three hits.

The Borg have to understand what they're adapting to before they can adapt to it. Even nature takes time to adapt to changing surroundings.

Besides, Voyager is more advanced the the Enterprise by 12 years. After WOLF 359, do you think Starfleet would still be making ships that couldn't withstand a Borg attack? That would be negligent. Starfleet ships are being made smaller in design to be faster and more structurally sound in a battle.

The Borg didn't get weaker, Starfleet upgraded to withstand them and hold them off a little longer.

War advances technology. Wars on Earth allowed manufactures of tanks to use what they learned to build Volvo's & VW's. Due to Borg attack, it caused Starfleet to build a ship like the Defiant. Because of the Borg and growing threat of the Maquis, Starfleet designed a ship like Voyager.

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that the Borg remain at a constant level. For a race driven by the imperative of 'bettering themselves' that's a mighty big assumption, and one that completely contradicts their very nature. Effectively what we're saying is that in time between BOBW and Voyager, the Borg don't really upgrade themselves at all, which is a little preposterous.

The Defiant was specifically designed to combat the Borg, and summarily got its ass handed to it in First Contact by a solitary cube. That took place during a time when Voyager was already in the DQ, long-since stranded. There's also the fact that there was an Intrepid-class starship in Earth orbit at the time the Borg attacked Earth in First Contact. It was ineffective.

Given the prominence of the Dominion war, we saw a few Defiant class starships in battle against the Jem'hadar, yet we never got to see any Intrepid-class ships? The only time we did get to see one in DS9 was during a diplomatic mission to Romulus in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.

In truth, Voyager's ability to resist and even better the Borg in later series was more down to Voyager's typical sloppy writing and it's overuse of deus ex machina plot devices, hence the Borg go from being the quadrant's ultimate super-power to being cannon fodder for Janeway's 'super' torpedoes :rolleyes:
 
exodus said:
Goji said:
The emasculation of the Borg for me happened during Voyager's horrid "Unimatrix Zero", in which the crew allows themselves to be assimilated intentionally! With, of course, not a single negative repercussion ever shown at any time later. And THIS is what everyone has been so deathly afraid of for the past decade? I don't see how the Borg could be taken seriously as a threat after that.
Thanks to Dr. Crusher & Data de-assimilating Picard, the EMH studing the Borg body from "Blood Fever" and aquiring information on how the Borg assimilate in "Dark Frontier", why would anybody need to be afraid of assimilation anymore? How many ex-Drones did Voyager come across since "Unity"?

Yes, and all of that robbed the Borg of everything that made them interesting and frightening. Which is exactly my point.
 
Goji said:
exodus said:
Goji said:
The emasculation of the Borg for me happened during Voyager's horrid "Unimatrix Zero", in which the crew allows themselves to be assimilated intentionally! With, of course, not a single negative repercussion ever shown at any time later. And THIS is what everyone has been so deathly afraid of for the past decade? I don't see how the Borg could be taken seriously as a threat after that.
Thanks to Dr. Crusher & Data de-assimilating Picard, the EMH studing the Borg body from "Blood Fever" and aquiring information on how the Borg assimilate in "Dark Frontier", why would anybody need to be afraid of assimilation anymore? How many ex-Drones did Voyager come across since "Unity"?

Yes, and all of that robbed the Borg of everything that made them interesting and frightening. Which is exactly my point.

It took an alliance of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and eventually the Cardassians to force a Dominion expeditionary force into submission, but the good ship poppycock can go to the very heart of Borg space and dish out a tin of whupass whenever it pleases, on its own? :rolleyes:

The Borg lost all credibility, and in doing so, Trek lost one of its greatest assets.
 
Well, they kind of had to. Otherwise VOY would've been destroyed in a few minutes and the show over.

DS9 pulled off huge big battles because they had the entire Trek universe to mess with. VOY was always just one small ship and as such they could never do those kinds of stories.

So it was pretty much the only thing they could do was have VOY survive their multiple encounters.
 
Angel4576 said:
exodus said:
Not instantaneously. We've seen they only adapt to phaser fire on a rotating frequency after three hits.

The Borg have to understand what they're adapting to before they can adapt to it. Even nature takes time to adapt to changing surroundings.

Besides, Voyager is more advanced the the Enterprise by 12 years. After WOLF 359, do you think Starfleet would still be making ships that couldn't withstand a Borg attack? That would be negligent. Starfleet ships are being made smaller in design to be faster and more structurally sound in a battle.

The Borg didn't get weaker, Starfleet upgraded to withstand them and hold them off a little longer.

War advances technology. Wars on Earth allowed manufactures of tanks to use what they learned to build Volvo's & VW's. Due to Borg attack, it caused Starfleet to build a ship like the Defiant. Because of the Borg and growing threat of the Maquis, Starfleet designed a ship like Voyager.

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that the Borg remain at a constant level. For a race driven by the imperative of 'bettering themselves' that's a mighty big assumption, and one that completely contradicts their very nature. Effectively what we're saying is that in time between BOBW and Voyager, the Borg don't really upgrade themselves at all, which is a little preposterous.

The Defiant was specifically designed to combat the Borg, and summarily got its ass handed to it in First Contact by a solitary cube. That took place during a time when Voyager was already in the DQ, long-since stranded. There's also the fact that there was an Intrepid-class starship in Earth orbit at the time the Borg attacked Earth in First Contact. It was ineffective.

Given the prominence of the Dominion war, we saw a few Defiant class starships in battle against the Jem'hadar, yet we never got to see any Intrepid-class ships? The only time we did get to see one in DS9 was during a diplomatic mission to Romulus in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.

In truth, Voyager's ability to resist and even better the Borg in later series was more down to Voyager's typical sloppy writing and it's overuse of deus ex machina plot devices, hence the Borg go from being the quadrant's ultimate super-power to being cannon fodder for Janeway's 'super' torpedoes :rolleyes:
The fact that the Defiant could take on one cube and still be last until the Enterprise showed up, means it lived up to everything it was meant to do. The Definant's were meant to be a fleet, not just one ship against a Cube. Voyager puropes is different than the Defiant. The Defiant is a war ship, Voyager is a scout ship.

Voyager got by the Borg, they didn't defeat or best them. If you watch every time Voyager encounters the Borg they barely get away. Big differance. The Borg aren't the worse the galaxy has to offer, just one of them. It's fan fic. and ideas that built up the Borg to be an unstoppable force. Even in BOBW, Starfleet knows how to defend against them but they stated over & over that they weren't ready yet. The fact that the Borg are still a threat and can still defeat us, means they have been upgrading, it doesn't negate we also can't have better defences.
 
^^ This is the point. The Defiant IS better equiped to take on the Borg, at least in terms of a ship-to-ship confrontation. It could hold its own for a while, but solitary in number wouldn't really have a chance at taking down a cube. Voyager, isn't even designed to combat the Borg in any way, shape or form, but succeeds on countless occasions in undertaking missions against the Borg, which more often than not, are akin to yanking their shorts over their heads and tying a knot.

Whether the Federation knew how to combat the Borg in BOBW is a moot point. Apparently Starfleet were equally 'unprepared' for another attack at the time of First Contact. Only Picard's knowledge of Borg systems saved the Earth for a second time, it was nothing to do with anything that Starfleet has prepared in the meantime.

Looking at the following;

Transphasic torpedoes appear only once, in the Voyager series finale, "Endgame". They are high-yield torpedoes that are designed specifically to fight the Borg. The future Admiral Janeway brought them back in time in a Federation shuttle-craft and had them installed onboard Voyager in 2377. They are among the most powerful weapons used in the Star Trek universe; this is evident from the fact that one torpedo is capable of destroying an entire Borg Cube, a feat normally requiring an almost impossible amount of punishment using standard Federation weapons.

If that's not deus ex machina, I honestly don't know what is....
 
Anwar said:
So it was pretty much the only thing they could do was have VOY survive their multiple encounters.

Which stretched credibility to breaking point. Introducing Janeway's 'super torpedoes' was the effective death knell for the franchise as anything other than dumbed down sci-fi for kids. Hardly surprising that people couldn't even be bothered to give Enterprise a chance.
 
Blame that on Ken Biller, who I'm glad to say wasn't on ENT.

He openly stated he had no idea of how to end the show so he figured "Hell I'll use the Borg."
 
To be fair, it was the final nail, but by no means the only one in the coffin at that point.

Biller and Jeri Taylor should never be allowed anything to do with Star Trek ever again IMO.
 
Well, at this point I think the chances of that happening are probably pretty close the 0%.
 
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